To request a SSL certificate, begin by generating a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) from your application or system and complete this form.
This process will vary on the operating system or application begin used to generate the CSR. Refer to this article for assistance with Apache or this article for assistance with Microsoft IIS. For additional information, visit the Sectigo knowledge base.
During the creation of the CSR, the following information is required:
Common Name (CN): This is the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of your server (e.g. www.dept.hawaii.edu). This must match exactly what you type into a web browser.
Organization Name (O): University of Hawaii (do not change)
Organization Unit (OU): The department, program, or campus requesting the certificate (e.g. IT Department).
Locality (L): The city that you are located in (e.g. Honolulu)
State or Province Name (ST): Hawaii
Country (C): US
Root Length: 2048-bits is required. All certs will be issued as SHA-2.
During the creation of a CSR, your application or operating system will also create a file called a private key. The private key is required to decrypt the issued SSL certificate. Secure this file, it is very important! It should never be shared. Without the private key, you will be unable to use the issued SSL certificate. If the private key is lost or compromised, you must create a new key pair and replace your SSL Certificate.
All certificates are currently issued for a 1-year duration; multi-year certs are no longer available. In 2026, certificate lifespan will decrease to 200 days. In 2027, it will decrease to 100 days and in 2029, it will decrease to 47 days.
Two types of certificates are available:
InCommon Single-domain SSL Certificate
Example: www.dept.hawaii.edu
This is the most common type of certificate requested.
InCommon Multi-Domain (MD) SSL Certificate
Example: dept.hawaii.edu, ââââwww.dept.hawaii.edu, one.dept.hawaii.edu, two.dept.hawaii.edu
This type of certificate is used to secure multiple applications or websites. MDCs support up to 100 fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) or host names. More information is available in the Sectigo Knowledge Base.